§1.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns loading documents such as Web pages for example. In particular, the present invention concerns measuring load times (e.g., time for a client to request, download and render), which may be a function of communications network speed and rendering speed of a document rendering application, such as a browser for example, the time it takes for a server to serve the document, etc.
§1.2 Background Information
As the speed of communications networks and microprocessors has continued to increase, peoples' tolerance for delays has decreased. For example, since the advent of the World Wide Web, the demand for downloading documents with richer content has driven the development of better and faster modems.
To meet this need, modem speeds have increased dramatically, from 300 baud (bits per second), to 1200 baud, to 33.6 Kbps, to 56 Kbps. Interactive Services Digital Network (ISDN) services provide two 64 kbps channels which may be bound to provide a throughput of 128 Kbps. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) can provide even faster speeds, subject to the gauge of phone wire used and the distance from a central switching office. Satellite and cable modems have provided even faster speeds.
As network speeds have increased, Web pages have started to include more sophisticated content, such as graphical elements, animations, audio files, video files, scripts and so on. Many people with slower Internet connections have become dissatisfied with their slower connections and have migrated toward higher speed connections such as cable modems and DLS modems for example.
To help users evaluate their present Internet connections, various bandwidth connection speed tests have become available to measure the speed of communications connections to the Internet. Unfortunately, however, such tests typically measure only the network speed in terms of the time consumed to download a file. An end user's Internet browsing experience is often a function of the delay between their selection of a document, and the complete rendering of that document. The speed of communications connections to the Internet is just one components of this overall delay. For example, the rendering of a received document may be a function of one or more of a browser (type) used, a computer used, content of the document, caching, etc.
In view of the need to satisfy users by decreasing or at least bounding delays, and in view of the limitations of present bandwidth connection speed tests, the present inventors believe that it would be useful to provide additional tests or different tests to help determine delays, particularly delays associated with Internet browsing. The present inventors also believe that it would be useful to evaluate various potential sources of delay.